how critical was it for the president to get merkel on board with sanctions? >> reporter: it's interesting, that is a glass is half full way of looking at it. here's what clearly they agree to. they have the next deadline that they've set to decide whether to do another round of sanctions and that is the may 25th election. you heard the president essentially say if russia destabilizing the situation, makes -- tries to mess with this election process, that will trigger -- and he hinted it would be a sectoral section and seemed to hint it would be at least one. i do think you do get the sense that they at least agreed to the next timeline as to when they are going to have this conversation whether to do sectoral. and if they do sectoral, it sounds like the president wants to make the sanctions sector at not just another set of individuals, that they would only pick one. there's significance that we all saw the "wall street journal" reporting that german business leaders are begging merkel to get the president to back down on sanctions. she's feeling the pinch in